


Started With A Call

by lurker_writes



Series: Started With A Call [1]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi, Rated For Violence, death of untagged character, nascent polyship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 16:58:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16876683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurker_writes/pseuds/lurker_writes
Summary: Zack just wanted one date before he left on this next mission. None of this was supposed to happen. There weren't many people he could call to break his girlfriend out of Shinra's clutches.





	Started With A Call

It all started with a call – or perhaps, it all ended with one.

Sephiroth mulled over Zack’s frantic, half-gasped words. “And you’re injured?”

Zack choked. He was unnaturally quiet through the staticy speaker. “Look, I’ll be fine. I don’t think the Tu—” He coughed again. It rattled.

In the office-that-was-not-his, not really, Sephiroth snapped one of the President’s thousand-gil pens with an idle press of his thumb. The ink ran over his glove and dripped onto the tile, midnight blue with an iridescent sheen.

“I don’t think they know how to take down a SOLDIER, really,” Zack tried to assure him.

Sephiroth flicked the ink from his fingers. It spattered across the computer screen, likely ruining it forever.

His decision was made.

“They’ll return to check, once their… business is handled,” he told Zack, his tone kept calm and even to avoid the attention of any passers-by. “Clear the area. As far as you can go. I’ll handle things here.”

“Really?” There was a quaver in Zack’s voice. Pain or emotion, he couldn’t tell. He wouldn’t wonder.

“Yes, really.” The circumstances were just as dire this time, if not more so. He ensured that only fondness made it into his voice, and not fear.

Zack sucked in a breath that squeaked in a throat drawn too tight, and grunted with pain on the exhale.

“Go,” Sephiroth told him. “She’ll be safe with me.”

He snapped shut his PHS and took up his sword, just in time for a Security Regular to come skidding into the office at a panicked, ungainly gallop.

“Sir! Sephi—” The boy panted. His voice was still cracking with youth. “Sephiroth, sir. Orders from the Turks. They said security inside SOLDIER has been compromised. Professor Hojo wants you to—”

The boy’s helmet made a terrible clatter when it skittered across the floor, away from the body that crumpled on cut strings.

Sephiroth spared a glance at the security camera, as he kicked the head away.

_He_ was how it all ended. But then, didn’t every end hold the seeds of a beginning within?

How _exhilarating_.

 

* * *

 

Aerith shivered in the tank, as much from the temperature as from fear. The glass walls would have made her feel exposed enough, even if her dress weren’t ripped beyond repair from her struggle. She clutched the awful gown she’d been given tighter to her. It did nothing to help.

Hojo paced around her, circling like a predator. She turned in place, a desperate effort to keep her eyes on him. He scribbled feverishly, alternately muttering and cackling to himself. The sound through the glass was muted like she was underwater.

Caught up in his triumph, Hojo failed to notice the tall shadow slinking up behind him. Aerith barely dared flick her eyes in its direction. Was she scared of drawing attention to it, or drawing its attention to her? She couldn’t say.

Hojo stopped writing to crow with laughter. He slapped the glass of her case. His glee oozed over her skin, an oily thing that left furious shivers in its wake.

And then he stopped, eyes bulging wide behind his glasses, mouth hanging open. His clipboard tumbled to the floor.

There was a sword point protruding from his chest, glittering steel smeared with bright red blood. The blade has sliced so quickly and so cleanly it was as though it just _appeared_. The blood welled up in the wound slowly, so slowly, like his flesh was only just realizing it was cut.

He was flicked to the side, like his weight was insignificant – like _he_ was insignificant. It was as he slid off the end of the sword that a gush of blood bubbled out over the edges of the wound, all frothy like the fizz on a drink.

She forced herself to raise her eyes, and follow the line of the blade all the way back to…

Sephiroth stooped to seize Hojo’s wrist, and raised Hojo’s hand to press it against some panel on the console. Hojo’s head lolled on his neck, and he hung from Sephiroth’s grip like a rag doll.

There was a hiss that made her jump back, and then the cylinder trapping her sunk back into the floor. She struggled for something to say. Her lips formed the beginning of a tangle of different words, all while her throat refused to squeeze out a single sound.

Sephiroth smiled at her, and it was such a soft and gentle expression on the face of a man still holding a corpse. He dropped Hojo and offered her his hand. “I’m a friend,” he said.

She remained rooted to the spot.

He leaned forward like he was about to approach, before he thought better of it. “We need to go. Zack is waiting for you.”

_Zack_. She darted forward. Her bare feet splashed through the hot blood on the tile. She cringed but kept going, until she collided with his chest. He pressed his empty hand between her shoulder blades to steady her, and she gasped at the touch of his glove against her bare skin, through the gap in her gown.

“Ah.” He stepped back and leaned his sword against the console. Before she could protest, he was shrugging out of his coat. He draped it over her shoulders.

It was heavy, and warm from his body, and had the musky smell of man and leather conditioner clinging to it.

“Are you ready?”

She glanced back at Hojo for resolve. “Yes.” Her voice was hoarse, but at least she had found it again.

He lifted her, and she clung to his neck. Her in his right arm, and his sword in his left; that was how they made their way through the chaos that had overtaken the building.

Her trip into the labs was all a haze, fighting against the drugs on the rag Tseng had forced over her face. The journey out was a rush of adrenaline. Men piled out of doorways to face them and were mowed down before they could raise their rifles. She was in the care of a whirlwind, a completely unstoppable force.

One – boy, he was a _boy_ – peered out of a doorway after his fellows had all crumpled. His helmet was gone. He had blue, blue eyes and a shock of blond hair and a rifle pointed at the floor.

Aerith’s heart lurched. It was less thrilling, when they had faces.

“It’s a shame,” the boy said, his voice rough with fear but still firm with resolve, “that I was too hurt to stop you.”

Sephiroth nodded once. His sword flashed out, jabbed as quick as the needle on Mom’s sewing machine. The boy jerked with each hit; but when he staggered back and slid down the wall, his eyes were still lucid and he was bleeding only sluggishly.

He grunted. “Pity we aren’t there, to guard the south stairwell.”

“Hn.” Sephiroth dropped a potion in the boy’s lap as they passed.

Her heart lurched again, different this time. No less troublesome. She brushed her fingers against Sephiroth’s cheek.

He twitched under her touch and glanced askance at her with bright, skittish eyes.

“That was a good thing you did.” She could feel the strength of his pulse where her hand curled around his neck.

“It was selfish,” he demurred. “It wasn’t for him. I just wanted to choose.”

His hair was soft and cool like silk. It slid against her fingers as she brushed it out of his face, tucked the strands behind his ear.

She sighed. “If it helps others, maybe why doesn’t matter?”

“Hm.”

She wrapped the moment up and tucked it away carefully, aware that her current feelings were as delicate – and maybe as falsely precious – as spun glass. Later, she’d take it out and turn it over, admire it or discard it. When there wasn’t adrenaline zinging through her veins. When she was less… starstruck, less swept off her feet. When she had her wits about her, that’s when she’d give it some thought.

 

* * *

 

There was smoke rising out of Midgar.

Okay, there was usually smoke rising out of Midgar, but now there was, like, a _lot_. Zack turned his PHS over in his hands several times, like a good luck charm, before he shoved it back in his pocket. He wasn’t a rookie anymore. He knew he couldn’t call _now_ , not when it might distract Sephiroth or give away his position.

If he was helping.

Zack kicked the dirt and looked again to the haze settling over the city.

That was really a _lot_.

Was there anything besides Sephiroth on a rampage that could cause chaos on that sort of scale?

He did _say_ he was going to help.

Zack stared down the length of the highway, eyes squinted to try and coax more distance from his vision. He thought he heard an engine.

He reached for his sword and grunted, clutching at his ribs in a spasm of pain. He wasn’t dying or anything, but man. The Turks sure could do a number on a guy when they wanted to. He was gonna be feeling that fight for a while.

The vague sound of an engine turned into a transport truck, which was really booking it. Zack backed away from the edge of the road.

Just to be safe.

The truck screeched to a stop in a maneuver that was definitely _not legal holy shit_. He groped for his sword again, but before he could heft it past his shoulder, Aerith came tumbling out of the passenger side, wearing baggy security blues and Sephiroth’s coat draped over her shoulders like a cape.

“Zack!” She dashed toward him. “You’re okay!”

He flung his arms wide for her, totally heedless of the stinging in his ribs. “See? I told you I’d get help.”

She pushed herself away to peer up at his face, scrutinizing him for _something_ or other. Whatever she was looking for, she must have been satisfied. She hooked her hands around his neck and pulled him down into a kiss.

“I was so scared,” she whispered when they broke apart.

_Nah, see, we’re fine_ , is what he wanted to say, but the words died on his tongue. He swallowed them back down. “...Yeah. Me too.”

“We need to move.”

The two of them both jumped like the teenagers they were, caught in the act.

“Sephiroth! You, uh—”

Aerith took his hand and gave it a little squeeze. He glanced down at her and nodded.

“Sephiroth,” he tried again. “I – thank you. I just – thanks.”

He held out his hand, and Sephiroth took it. _I’m gonna hug him_ , Zack thought as he tugged him closer. _This definitely deserves a hug_. But as he reeled Sephiroth in, he glanced up and saw that _smile_ – that shy, secret little smile – and a tidal wave of gratitude and affection just crashed over him and his body just got away from his brain and—

He regained something like his senses to realize he’d leaned in and planted a kiss right on Sephiroth’s lips.

He jumped back, but instead of anger, he found Sephiroth’s stupid-long lashes just fluttering open and the barest hint of a flush on his cheeks. Oh. Well, that was – that was not what he was expecting.

Sephiroth exhaled a shaky little puff of air and turned his gaze off to the side – but he still had that little smile. “Get in,” he said. “We need to move.”

They all piled into the cab, which was made at least a little simpler by the bench seat. It still ended up with legs pressed together and arms slung around shoulders in search of room.

Zack rolled down the window, just to get the breeze in his hair. “So, where are we going?”

Sephiroth pressed the accelerator a little harder. “Hm. Wherever you want.”

Wherever they wanted, huh? Yeah. Zack thought he could work with that.


End file.
